Coca

For the people of Bolivia, coca is a sacred plant, a traditional medicine and a source of income. For the US government, it is evil, to be eradicated at any cost. And as American-funded troops burn their way through tonnes of this year's crop, the farmers are complaining of 'cultural genocide'.

A Harvard University study found that 100g of Bolivian coca more than satisfied the recommended daily allowances of calcium, iron, phosphorus, vitamin A and riboflavin. 

Contrary to popular belief, the burst of energy it gives comes not from the 0.5 cocaine content - this is in fact destroyed by saliva in the digestive tract, which is why cocaine users must snort or inject - but from its conversion of carbohydrates into glucose, and its stimulation of the respiratory system.

In one of the howling ironies of the coca war, the Stephan company legally imports 175,000 kilos of Chapare coca each year to manufacture, among other things, a de-cocainised flavouring for Coca-Cola.

--Nick Thorpe, Guardian, August 25, 2000

"The coca leaf represents, to the producers and to the consumers, a national flower of many uses- medical nutritional and ritual. It is consumed as a tea, or directly chewed during the pijceo. The leaf is used as a natural stimulant to support the many long hours of work, provide energy in extreme weather and to cure problems of the stomach, bones and circulatory system. In the poorest sectors, the coca leaf is mixed with ashes and is often the only regular food which guarantees basics calories and proteins for survival.Of the dozens of applications of the coca leaf, the drug cocaine is just one derivative, and is not the one to which the Bolivian campesinos are dedicated." 

External Resources

 * Museo de la Coca
 * June 2003 a view on Bolivian coca
 * June 2002 a view on Peruvian coca
 * Illicit narcotics cultivation and processing: the ignored environmental drama, 1992 publication of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime